Germany: Teachers’ Day highlights that politicians must support teachers

The 2018 Autumn Conference of the German Teachers' Day is taking place under the slogan: “Taking new paths!?”, urging public authorities to provide teachers with adequate working conditions, so they are armed to face current education challenges and can deliver quality education.

“Teachers in Germany are faced with enormous challenges, stressed Udo Beckmann, Federal President of Verband Bildung und Erziehung (VBE), an Education International affiliate.

He went on to explain that “inclusion, integration and learning in the digital world call for new ways for teachers to engage on a daily basis with great commitment”.

He also insisted that “politicians must finally fulfil their responsibilities and provide the necessary human and financial resources. It is unacceptable that, in times of massive teacher shortages, new demands are put on teachers, while they are denied the necessary conditions to implement them.”

“For years, we have established a format in which we offer teachers a broad and practice-oriented on-going education programme, in order to help them face changing and increasing challenges,” Beckmann noted.

The Chairman of Verband Bildungsmedien (Association of Education Media) Ilas Körner-Wellershaus also underlined that “education is the basis for the success of an individual. Every child should be supported in the best possible way, regardless of his or her origin, gender, social class or socio-economic status.”

He added that “teachers remain crucial even though school policy must undoubtedly create the necessary framework, the path to more educational justice remains a process in which every teacher and every school continue to be of the highest importance”.

“The educational media publishers see themselves as partners for these diverse paths,” according to Korner-Wellershaus, as “they support teachers through their offers and above all digital developments, as well as with training and events like the German Teachers' Day here in Dortmund.”

Background

The German Teachers' Day is one of the largest nationwide training days for teachers in Germany. The autumn conference is taking place on 16 November in Dortmund. It is jointly organised by the VBE federal secretariat, the North Rhine-Westphalia’s VBE branch and Verband Bildungsmedien, and is under the auspices of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany (KMK).

For more information about the German Teachers’ Day (in German), please click here